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-----Original Message----- IETF working group chairs; We are developing an open-source tool for monitoring the
status and progress of conflicts in on-line working groups (WG).
The tool works by analyzing the WG mailing list. When developed, this tool
should be helpful to WG chairs trying to understand the status of
WG discussions (how close to consensus is the WG, what is the
distribution of participation, etc). As part of the development process we have been using a
prototype tool to analyze IETF WG mailing list archives to determine the
amount of conflict and how effective this conflict is being (has
been) resolved. As the first step, we need to understand the relationship
between the conflicts in a working group and the structure of the
communication network in that group. While having conflicts is not
necessarily a bad thing for a working group effort, some conflicts can
escalate into disasters. We are interested in finding the communication
patterns related to the evolution of group conflicts. Results from
this study will provide the base for the development of the tool
that helps working group chairs to decide when to intervene with an internal
conflict before it becomes irreversibly negative as well as being
a tool that may help determine where there is consensus on a particular
topic. We would like your help in understanding the level of
conflicts within your working groups and how the conflicts affect
productivity and group members’ perception on the working group. It will
be greatly appreciated if you could ask your WG members to anonymously fill a
short survey at https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dExTbEU5QmRncnhFbjhQUVR4bzBGMEE6MA Thank you! Best Regards, Bin Zhu, Mark Gaynor, Scott Bradner, and Jialun Qin |